Alltynex Second

Developer: Siter Skain

Steam Release: Dec 2014
Hours Played: 4.2
Similar To: Eschatos / Ether Vapor Remaster / Icarus-X: Tides of Fire / Saviors
Rating: 4/5 Parsnips

GAMEPLAY
Alltynex Second is one of a series of three vertical scrollers by Sitar Skain that essentially serves as an updated version of the other two: RefleX and Kamui (minor classics in their own right). In an outer space setting, and moving at super-fast speeds, you control a ship that can move in any direction while taking down enemy spacecraft with one of three attacks. First up is your standard rapid-fire missiles that shoots a fast stream of bullets in an upward direction - good for dishing out heavy damage to ships in front of you. Secondly you have the weaker homing missile option to pick off those hard-to-get-at foes across the other side of the screen... and finally, you've got a melee sword attack (yes, you read that right) to pummel heavier and larger ships in close proximity.       

BALANCE & PACE
With the three modes of attack mapped to the A, X and B buttons on the Xbox controller, the game plays out like an absolute treat. With five stages or Acts altogether, you'll memorise the patterns and configurations of your adversaries and become accustomed to how they behave and how they square up to attack. As such, you'll feel more and more like a boss as you anticipate the actions and cut a swathe through oncoming ships with increasing aplomb. You can either attempt to play the game from Act 1 through to Act 5 or go for the Practice Mode which puts you in one act and lets you go for the best score. There is an Easy, Normal or Hard option but Easy seems perfectly fine for your average gamer. It's set at quite a challenging pace and is positively tough with regular mini-bosses thrown at you regularly.     
 

PRESENTATION & DESIGN
As with a lot of these Japanese-style bullet-hell games you'll need to get around the counter-intuitive way the Xbox buttons have been set up while negotiating the menus. This can be nothing short of maddening at first and, although a pleasantly wobbly-wibbly sound accompanies each click, is an annoying hurdle to surmount when starting out. Furthermore, the bland music which you'll almost certainly want to silence can only be done before launching the game via a Windows 98 style configuration tool. Still, while players of the retro version of this game (RefleX and Kamui) will feel right at home with the gameplay, they will immediately notice the ramp up in graphical quality. Explosions are crisp and sharp while the sound-effects (to be enjoyed with the intrusive music off) give the experience the right oomph. 

PROGRESS SYSTEM
There are two modes in Alltynex Second: Start Game will basically throw you into a story or survival mode game where you'll begin playing from Act 1 and be charged with the task of playing the game straight through, battling through each act along the way. Practice will give you the option of choosing one of the five unlockable acts and will challenge you to amass the highest score in that act. You can try both modes on Easy, Normal or Hard difficulty. The High-Score chart via the home-page will commendably and conveniently show your Top 10 scores in both modes but only for local (not online) scores. All acts for the practice mode with all three difficulty settings for each are displayed. Once you get used to how to navigate through it, it's a good clean and clear system.

CONCLUSION

With so many complex bullet-hell games out there, there is sometimes a craving to charge through a simple and straightforward shooter with no fiddly score system attached. (Soundodger+ may be the simplest bullet-hell but is not a shooter.) Packaged with a slightly involved scoring system, made clearer by its tutorial, Alltynex Second doesn't really come close to clinching it in this respect (you build up your multiplier by killing the fodder quickly and then take down heavier ships immediately after). But as a fairly swift romp in outer space shooting down space ships and basking in the explosions, along with killing the odd 20 minutes here and there, Alltynex Second can fill the box with a pretty firm tick.